


thestrals

by Luvandia



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Family Drama, Hogwarts AU, Implied Murder, M/M, Mention of Isara Mao, Thestrals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 13:42:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8847250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luvandia/pseuds/Luvandia
Summary: Horses, he calls them, fond of the variant that muggles know so well.But what he sees are not horses.





	

Ritsu sees them. 

He’s been able to for as long as he’s been alive, through gaps between intertwining branches and patches of discoloured grass, serving as an informal boundary beyond which the horizon stretches for miles. _Horses_ , he calls them, fond of the variant that muggles know so well. The wingless kind, ones that have mass to their bodies and longer snouts and eyes not quite as unseeing, equally as majestic in every fairy tale that Maa-kun has ever read him. 

But what he sees are not horses.

They are creatures of the night — drawn to blood like he is, with the same broody eyes but with a terribly existent volition — and they roam the Forbidden Forest with a sort of gathered, eerie gloom.

“In our first year, Ecchan. When I made that stinky flask of Hiccoughing Potion, and I blamed the smell on you… I think that was the first time I saw death staring right at me,” explains Ritsu, having monopolised Eichi’s arm for a nap. “So it’s your fault I can see them. Bad, _bad_ Ecchan.”

Then his voice breaks off into a yawn, and, well, napping for just a few seconds more wouldn’t hurt him.

\--

Later when Ritsu’s rolled off the couch and onto the floor, Eichi forgoes nudging the older boy into consciousness with his foot so he can seek out a proper answer.

Sakuma Rei never sleeps past the crack of dusk, but he rarely ventures from his coffin in the Slytherin common room if he isn’t needed elsewhere, and so that is where Eichi finds him, sitting up by the fireplace as the reflection of the lake outside dusts green over his features.

As always, Rei listens before speaking, though this time his words are slow, deliberate. His gaze is fixed carefully on the window, away from Eichi’s amused eyes, when he says very casually that their father is dead. A stake to the heart had done him in. 

Eichi doesn’t ask who did it.

He knows, and Rei knows he knows, that the elder Sakuma brother has always been too soft to kill.

**Author's Note:**

> in their first year ritsu made a potion that smelled like a fart and he turned to eichi and said "ecchan that's nasty" and eichi will never forget


End file.
